


Ishavet kaller

by MildredMost



Category: Dark Matter - Michelle Paver
Genre: Diary/Journal, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Englishmen in love, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-15 04:52:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13023621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredMost/pseuds/MildredMost
Summary: Jack and Gus both survive Gruhuken and are taken to Longyearbyen to recover. But there's something badly wrong with Jack, and Gus wonders if anything will be right again.It had taken getting his appendix out for Gus to realise he was in love. It was ridiculous of course. Completely ridiculous. Of all the awkward buggers in the world to fall for, in of all the awkward situations. But Jack ticked every box on a list he hadn’t known he had: lean, dark, scathingly honest, and burning with intellectual curiosity.





	Ishavet kaller

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_la_grecque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_la_grecque/gifts).



_In the darkness, my hand touches his. I grab it. My chest is bursting. I’m trying to haul him upwards, but my fingers are numb, and he starts to slip out of my grip. Then there are hands underneath my arms pulling us both up, and I hold on, I hold on._

**1st December**  
**Longyearbyen - Infirmary**

Jack was having one of his bad days. Coughing his lungs up, terrified, not eating or drinking. Just begging for Gus help. But there was nothing Gus could do but hold him as he convulsed.

“It’s inside me,” Jack managed, wiping tears from his eyes. “Gus you must believe me. It’s inside me - I have to get it out.” He collapsed against his pillow, face damp with sweat, shivering.

“There’s nothing inside you Jack,” Gus said. He rang a bell for the nurse, then wet a cloth and wiped Jack’s face and mouth as gently as he could. “The doctors are sure of it. Promise you.”

“I breathed it in. I can feel it,” Jack said. He was badly gone today, his eyes wide with terror, chest heaving with panicked breathing. “It’s there. A part of...it. Can’t they,” he took a shuddering breath. “Can’t they open me up and look?”

Gus looked at him helplessly. The fact was, other than a badly frostbitten foot, there was nothing physically wrong with Jack. The doctors had suggested it was TB like his father, that it had lain dormant until the shock of the cold and his illness had triggered it. But he didn’t have any of the symptoms of TB, just the awful, gut-wrenching cough.

“Gus, help me. Please help me.” Gus couldn’t bear it when Jack started pleading. He’d never felt so bloody useless.

A nurse came in to the small room with a trolley. Murmuring soothing words to Jack she adjusted his pillows, straightened the bedclothes, encouraged him to drink water. Gus was instructed to turn the lamps down a fraction, but Gus knew the reason Jack preferred them blazing and left them alone. Finally, when Jack was calmer, she injected him with the sedative the doctors prescribed as a last resort.

Gus hated the way the sedative made Jack’s eyes roll back and face go slack. He didn’t need sedatives or this blasted bedrest, in Gus’s opinion; he needed light and warmth and the sun on his face. But they were stuck here in this perpetual night until Jack was strong enough to travel south. Though it seemed like he never would be.

Gus watched him sleep for a while to make sure he wasn’t going to dream, but the sedative the infirmary gave out seemed to stop that happening. They both dreamed, usually. Jack had what the doctors called Night Terrors; screaming horrors without being fully conscious.

Jack whimpered a little and turned over. He reached out a hand, searching, and caught Gus’s frost-damaged one. Gus held it as tightly as his remaining fingers would allow and Jack squeezed back, though Gus had no idea if Jack knew he was doing it.

It had taken getting his appendix out for Gus to realise he was in love. It was ridiculous of course. Completely ridiculous. Of all the awkward buggers in the world to fall for, in of all the awkward situations. But Jack ticked every box on a list he hadn’t known he had: lean, dark, scathingly honest, and burning with intellectual curiosity. It had been buried beneath a layer of shame and class antagonism and self doubt, but Gus in his blunt way had broken down the invisible walls between them and it had led to one of the most satisfying friendships of his life.

And that could possibly - probably - be enough. God knew what Jack thought about him, after all. But Gus knew it was all in for him; once he had made up his mind to something or someone, he didn’t waver. Didn’t really see why one would; he was rarely wrong about people. Algie was a case in point. He could be a silly ass of course, but there was no one he’d rather be in a tight corner with if it came to it. At least until he met Jack.

Unusually, he realised, his parents knew about his inclinations. He’d been well and truly caught by his father at the age of sixteen, kissing the assistant gardener in the Elizabethan knot garden of all bloody places. His father had cleared his throat loudly and stalked off. The gardener had legged it, leaving Gus to fulminate over the situation until afternoon tea.

But there was no reading of the riot act. His mother had wrapped an arm around him, pulling him close and kissing his hair. He had let himself melt against her. His father asked for his help with a crossword clue about botany, and that had been that.

Gus imagined introducing Jack to them and got a warm feeling at the thought. They’d think him wonderful of course for keeping the expedition going, for throwing himself into the black, frozen sea to save their son.

Of course, Gus had to somehow save Jack first.

Gus gently pulled his bandaged hand away from Jack as Jack’s hand went slack. There was still work to do to salvage what they could of the expedition data and placate the Admiralty. Then he’d go and visit Isaak, who Gus was paying a local to care for, and send a wire to Algie who had begun the journey home a week ago.

Xxxx

 **22 January**  
**Longyearbyen - Infirmary**

Weeks had gone by and Jack was no better. He barely slept unless sedated, and ate no more than would keep a child alive. Mealtimes had become a source of distress for both of them.

“Come along old man,” Gus said, stroking Jack’s back as it always seemed to settle him. God how painfully thin he was, he could feel every notch of Jack’s spine, every single rib. He suppressed a panicked feeling and spoke as gently as he could. “Just a little soup. Do it for Isaak, he’s desperate for you to take him out walking.”

Jack nodded, putting the spoon into his mouth as if it were a weapon. He swallowed. Dipped the spoon and swallowed again. Gus stroked circles between Jack’s shoulder blades, afraid to stop. He barely breathed as Jack reached the bottom of the bowl, the spoon scraping against the earthenware.

“Well done old chap,” Gus said, his heart lifting. “Marvellous stuff. You’re on the mend alright.”

Jack nodded, saying nothing. He hadn’t spoken of the thing inside him for weeks now. On brighter days when Jack had eaten and slept a little and they talked and teased each other, Gus hoped that Jack was healing. That whatever damage the horror of Gruhuken had done to Jack’s mind was beginning to fade.

On bad days Gus wondered if Jack had just given up asking for help.

Gus dreamed sometimes of Gruhuken. Rotting fingers scraping in the dirt. The gleam of a knife uncovered. He didn’t know what it meant at all.

 

 **1st February**  
**Longyearbyen - Infirmary**

Jack had begun asking to go outside.

“I need air,” he said, not quite looking at Gus. “I’m sick to death of this room. I want to see Isaak, and I want to walk on the shore. I want to feel cold wind on my face.”

“Good show,” said Gus heartily, knowing the doctors would be unlikely to allow him. “I’m sure once you’re a little better…”

“I’m not going to get better, am I?” Jack snapped. Gus looked at him, stricken. Jack looked away. “I mean, if I can’t go out,” he said quickly. “It would only be for a few minutes. You could wheel me down there like an 80 year old invalid, all wrapped in blankets.”

“All right. If the doctors say it’s ok, I’ll do it,” said Gus.

“Grand,” Jack said, reviving their old joke, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Xxxx

 **3rd February**  
**Longyearbyen - Infirmary**

“Now look here Jack,” Gus was saying; angry with Jack, and angry with himself for letting that authoritarian note into his voice. It only ever made Jack dig his heels in more deeply.

“No, _you_ look,” Jack rasped, his voice hoarse from a nasty bout of coughing. “It’s full moon and I want to go outside. Keeping me confined in here, it’s cruelty to animals and you know it. Half an hour, that’s all I…”

“The doctors have been quite clear...”

“The doctors don’t know what the hell they’re doing!” snapped Jack.

They’d been arguing most of the day about it, on and off.

“If you don’t take me, I’ll bloody well ask that nurse. You know, the one who flirts with me,” Jack said.

Gus rubbed his face with both hands.

“Well we both know you’re not going to do that, not least because I think you’re congenitally incapable of flirting back,” Gus said, and Jack glared at him. Gus wished there wasn’t a shallow part of him that found Jack’s face even more attractive when he was almost speechless with fury.

“Then I’ll go by myself. I’ll crawl out if I have to.”

“Try it and I’ll tie you to the bed,” Gus burst out, then went bright red at the look on Jack’s face and fell silent.

He tried to sort through his thoughts. What was he protesting about, in reality? Did he really think the doctors knew best? Or was it the creeping feeling of horror he’d had in recent weeks, spilling over from his endless dreams of Gruhuken? If that was it, if that was the reason, then perhaps he was doing Jack a disservice in denying him this request.

He let out a sigh that was mostly a groan.

“All right,” he said. “Ten minutes.”  
“Fifteen,” Jack countered. “I want to see Isaak. Say...say hello to him.”

They waited until shift change, when Jack had just been checked and there would be no staff around for an hour or so. Gus had borrowed outdoor gear for Jack, much too large and very worn, but all of Jack’s had been cut off him after they’d pulled him from the sea.

He piled another blanket onto Jack’s lap and wheeled the chair towards the Infirmary doors.

They were out. He heard Jack gasp as the cold air hit him, and Gus laid a hand on his shoulder.

“ If you feel unwell, tell me at once, won’t you?” Gus said. Jack nodded.

Gus wheeled him down the rough stretch of road from the infirmary to the shore. The local man who had been keeping Isaak for Gus was waiting for them there and Jack almost fell out of his chair with the delight of seeing the dog. Isaak too was beside himself, licking Jack’s face all over and whimpering, trying to get into his lap. Somehow, amid the confusion, Gus got Jack and the chair and the dog down to the shore’s edge intact.

Gus and Jack lapsed into silence as they watched Isaak in the moonlight running too and fro. First to Jack to sniff him and give him a lick, then back to something interesting in the rocks, then back to Jack again. The moon was almost bright as day, lighting the waves in the bay. Jack took some great, gusty breaths in, and Gus realised that he wasn’t coughing.

“We’ve never truly spoken about my last days in Gruhuken, have we?” Jack said eventually.

“Plenty time for all that,” Gus said, suddenly feeling very strongly that he didn’t want to talk about it. “When you’re feeling stronger.”

Jack inclined his head in a brief nod and they fell silent again. Jack leant forward in his chair and propped his chin on his hands.

“Do you know where I keep my diary?” he said.

Gus hesitated then nodded. “Yes.”

“I want you to read it,” Jack said.

“All right,” Gus said. “Why now?”

Jack ignored the question. “It’s cruel about Algie,” he said shortly. “Jealous.”

“Of Algie?” Gus said. Jack’s mouth lifted into a half smile.

“You really haven’t any idea, have you?” he said. “God. I...” He looked at Gus, every delicate bone of his face in stark relief in the moonlight. “Help me up.”

Gus pulled him to his feet, flinching at how easy it was to do so. Jack leant on his crutch. They looked at each other in silence.

“I wrote in my diary that I saw you as a brother,” Jack said. “But that’s not it at all. It’s so much more than that. And...I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault.”

“What are you sorry about?” Gus said. “Jack…?”

Jack took a lurching step towards the sea. He steadied himself then took a few more steps.

“Steady on,” Gus said. “You’ll fall in. Hang it all, Jack wait for me.”

Jack ignored him.

“Here, stop…” Gus tried to grab Jack’s wrist but it was his bad hand and he couldn’t get a grip. Jack shook him off and Gus tried again, but Jack shoved him with his crutch, sending Gus over on his back, and stumbled to the water’s black edge. He dropped to his knees and put his hand in the water. Gus scrambled to his feet.

“ _Jack!_ ”

There was a strange thrumming sensation in the air, a throb that pulsed through him painfully, deafening him. Gus fell back to his knees, his legs refusing to hold him up.

A dark head bobbed in the water.

Isaak launched into a frenzy of barking. Jack stretched out a hand.

“Don’t look at it, don’t look,” Gus said, but Jack couldn’t hear him. Gus could barely hear himself.

Isaak was growling now, low and menacing. The throbbing in Gus’s ears intensified. He looked up and saw the figure crawling to shore, one shoulder hitched higher than the other, the wet, mouldering smell hitting his nostrils.

“Let me go,” Jack was shouting at the figure. “Just let me fucking go or kill me. Don’t keep me in this state, this bloody torture...”

He was on his hands and knees in the freezing water, and the figure lurched towards him, hand outstretched.

“Oh Jack,” Gus moaned. “Jesus _God_ , don’t touch it.”

But it was touching _him_. It had pressed it’s hand to Jack’s chest, and Jack was gasping and choking for air. And it lowered its face, or what had been its face, to Jack's, as though it wanted to steal his breath. 

Something in its hand caught the light.

With mounting horror, Gus realised what it held. He’d dreamed of it. Rotting fingers scraping in the dirt. The gleam of a knife uncovered. It had been digging up the things they’d buried. The flensing knives.

It put a mouldering hand on Jack’s head and Gus’s senses swam with revulsion. He scrambled to his feet again, but was almost knocked flying by Isaak bolting past him, lips curled back in a ferocious snarl. The thing pushed Jack’s head under the water and brought up the knife.

Isaak was too fast for it. He latched onto the thing’s arm and ripped it with all his strength and Gus was sickened to hear bone cracking as it tore away. Isaak shook his head hard, as though he was killing a rat and it flew from his mouth, into the dark sea.

The figure on the beach feel to its knees. Gus was there now, fighting, kicking at it, hauling Jack from the water. “Oh,” Jack said, shuddering, his breath coming faster and faster in panic. “Oh God Gus. Help me-”

Gus dragged Jack into his lap, and made him meet his eyes. “Look at me.” Jack fixed his dark eyes onto Gus. “Keep your eyes on me.”

Jack had collapsed on his side coughing. Isaak was frenzied with terror, barking and snarling.

Gus watched in revulsion as the Walker turned its back on the shore and crawled back into the black sea. Isaak gave a long howl.

“It’s gone,” Jack whispered. “It’s gone.” He shook and Gus realised Jack was laughing. “You saved me,” he said.

“You bloody mad man,” Gus said, too exhausted to be furious, but Jack had already slipped into unconsciousness.

Gus picked him up, his panic lending extra strength to him, though Jack barely weighed more than a child now in any case.

He got him back inside, Isaak at his heels. He stripped off the coat, muffler, hat, boots. Wrapped him in a blanket and then took him in his arms. Isaak jumped onto the bed and sat on Jack’s legs and the two of them kept vigil, both willing life into the fragile body they warmed.

Xxxxxx

 **Longyearbyen Infirmary**  
**15th February**

When Jack woke up, his cough was gone.

For the next two weeks he slept endlessly. Natural, healing sleep. The nurses would wake him to eat, and he would eat anything put in front of him, ravenously. Gus found himself grinning idiotically at him during mealtimes, getting inordinate pleasure from seeing the food disappearing from the plates, and Jack’s spare frame begin to fill out.

When Gus found himself sitting staring fondly at Jack as he slept, enjoying the pink that had crept back into his cheeks, he knew he had to get a grip of himself. Ridiculous. Like a young girl swooning over a matinee idol, for heaven’s sake.

He decided instead to read Jack’s journal.

It was strange to read Jack’s impressions of him. It seemed he’d got off rather lightly - Jack had liked him in his own way, from the start - because good God he cut close to the bone. Poor Algie bore the brunt of course.

Gus devoured the pages, a strange hope beginning to twist in his gut. There was something about the way Jack described their friendship that lit him up inside. The moment Gus had taken off his glove to say goodbye before he’d left for his operation...Gus blushed furiously at the memory. He’d wanted just for a moment to feel Jack’s skin against his, and he’d hoped that perhaps Jack would be distracted enough not to notice. But Jack noticed everything. And Christ, Gus had hardly been subtle, he’d licked his lips while looking at Jack like a wolf looking at his supper. He groaned and covered his face with a hand.

The entries after he and Algie had left were almost unbearable. The guilt crippled him. Why on earth hadn’t he warned Jack? Why hadn’t he taken him into his confidence? He trusted him more than anyone he’d ever met. The torment Jack had endured because he'd kept quiet. 

Tears pricked in his eyes. _Stupid._

He heard a sound and was transported from the claustrophobia of that horrifying cabin to the clean, light room in the infirmary.

Jack was awake and sitting up, looking at him. Gus closed the journal and laid it aside on the table.

“How’re you feeling old chap?” he said, falsely cheerful.

“You read it,” Jack said. He looked down at his hands. 

“You asked me to,” Gus said, his heart thumping.

"I thought I'd be dead," Jack said, and the stark way he said it was like a slap. Gus couldn't think of a response.

“Well then,” Jack said, and his face had that closed look that Gus had hoped was gone for good. “You know what I’m like now.” He sat back against his pillows. Gus stood.

“And what’s that?” he said.

“Cruel. Jealous. A coward,” Jack said, a bitter laugh escaping him.

“Well,” Gus said, speechless.

“Look here Gus, I get it. I’m not like you. I don’t see the best in people. I’m not…”

“Will you dry up for one minute?” Gus said, sounding angrier than he meant to. “I want to say something.”

“Gus…”

“No, don’t interrupt me. I want to say that yes I read it. And yes it was rather cruel about Algie. But as for cowardly...good God. It was the bravest, most honest and most terrifying thing I’ve ever read. The _guts_ it took to…” Gus felt his throat close up with emotion and stopped to gather himself. But he had to tell Jack how he felt.

“I feel bloody privileged and uncommonly lucky that you agreed to come on my expedition at all. And I’m frightfully glad to have met you.” He paused, then realised he wasn’t finished.

“And you’re beautiful,” he said. “But I expect you’ve been told that.” He closed his mouth, shocked at himself. Well, that was that, then.

Jack’s dark fringed eyes had widened and his lips parted a little, but he stayed silent. Gus felt himself get hot. Damn and blast the man.

“Say something for Christ’s sake,” he barked. God, he sounded like his father.

The silence lengthened and Gus longed to look away from Jack’s dark, bruised eyes but couldn’t for the life of him.

“Who on earth do you think would have told me I’m beautiful?” said Jack at last, his thin face breaking into a smile.

Gus laughed with relief.

“I forgot you didn’t speak to another soul for seven years, you obstinate swine,” he said. “I thought-” he sat down with a thud on the bed. “I thought you must know from the way I looked at you. I almost felt as though I had told you already.”

He should have told him. That night when they watched the Northern Lights, he should have told him then.

“You told me I looked like a pirate once,” Jack said. “When we grew beards. You looked like a blasted Norse God.”

“I get that from my mother,” Gus said and Jack grinned.

“I spent a lot of time contemplating your beard,” Gus admitted, edging forward on the bed a little. “When I said pirate, I meant one of those handsome ones from my Boys Own annual of course.”

“Of course,” Jack said, a delicious half smile still hovering on his lips.

“Only invited you along on the trip because you’re so dashed decorative,” Gus said.

“Only came along because you are,” Jack retorted. He was looking at Gus steadily now, and Gus felt an inexorable bubble of happiness rising within him with every word and every look that passed between them.

“Liar,” he said, delighted.

“Oh for god’s sake. You’re so good looking it makes me furious,” Jack said and Gus let the bubble spill into a laugh.

“Is that why you were so bad tempered all the time?” he said. He ran his hand up Jack’s thigh to where the sheets lay folded at his waist, and Jack took a deep breath.

Gus leaned forward, his mouth a whisper from Jack’s. He tilted his head slightly, a question in the action. Jack swallowed, his eyes bright and nervous. After a moment where he appeared to battle with himself, he nodded briefly, lips curving upwards.

Thanking God and everything he could think of, Gus leant forward and touched his mouth to Jack’s. Jack made a small sound, of pleasure or of fear Gus couldn’t tell, and Gus pulled back a little to give him space to decide.

“Where are you going?” Jack said softly, and brought up his hand to cup the back of Gus’s head.

And then he was kissing him.

Jack kissed as he did everything, with ferocious conviction. Gus fleetingly wondered if he had ever been with anyone before; he was so solitary. And then the kiss became wilder and harder, their mouths opening, Gus sliding his fingers into the dark silky hair he had longed to touch for so long, and he could only think of the lean body pressed against his.

Jack pulled his mouth away for a moment, dark eyes wide, looking at the window. Gus watched him, head dizzy, only registering the lush pink of Jack’s kiss-bruised lips and the thud of his own heart. But he was saying something, something important, which Gus didn’t catch.

Somewhere a bird started calling, and then another and another, and Jack was saying it again and this time Gus understood.

“It’s the sunrise,” Jack was saying, as pale gold light washed over him. “Look Gus, the sun’s coming up.”

 

xxxxxxxxxx

 _22 November, 1946_  
_Jamaica_

We escaped the war, Gus and I, damaged as we were. Gus says not being able to fight would have killed him, if he hadn’t had me.

And we do; we have each other. I never imagined anything so wonderful. His parents found us work in the Caribbean - a sop to my hatred of the cold and terror of the dark. Isaak is here too, because I found I couldn’t be parted from him.

We’re happy. Gus loves me. I still struggle to believe it though Gus is mystified as to why I’d even question it. The purity of his good looks still stun me at times, but not as much as the realisation that he feels utterly no shame about loving me and finding beauty in me in return.

I’m watching him now as I write this. He’s lying next to the wallow pool we dug Isaak in the garden, pouring water over his back with a tin cup. He’s observing how cold weather animals adapt to heat, he says, but I know it’s just because he’s soppier than I am about that dog.

He’s been casting me looks for a while now; the sorts of looks which mean he’ll suggest going indoors for a siesta in a moment. If I tease and say I want to write a little longer, he’s been known to catch me up over his shoulder and take me indoors anyway, the bloody great viking that he is.

I don’t know why I’m writing this down, it could get us in terrible trouble. Perhaps I’ll burn it. Perhaps not. Perhaps I will leave this trace of our relationship in the world, for there will be no marriage and children to leave it for us. Algie, when he visits, kindly goes along with the nonsense that we are just two friends, working together.

We talk about Gruhuken very little. Gus holds me through my night terrors, stroking my back as he always does, and lets me burn a lamp all night if it’s bad. He dreams too, but he doesn’t funk it a fraction of what I do. That’s his lack of imagination he says. I’m not sure if I believe him, but I’m grateful to him all the same.

We know we’ll never return to the Arctic, to find out if we stopped the haunting. Did we merely shake me free of it? Sunny, optimistic Gus thinks we did both, but I'm not so sure. Hate that strong can't easily be defeated. 

I think we’ve given up enough to be forgiven for never finding out.


End file.
